Much like the MLB season itself, the 2023 trade deadline is being dominated by Shohei Ohtani. The biggest star in all of baseball could be on the move before August 1, and the question of whether he’ll be dealt has massive implications for both the 2023 pennant race and the next decade of baseball as a whole. Ohtani leads the majors with 36 home runs, sports a 3.71 ERA, and is the runaway favorite for American League MVP—but he’s also set to become a free agent after this season, and the Los Angeles Angels sit on the fringes of the playoff race, staring at one of the most difficult and consequential decisions in franchise history. To trade or not to trade Ohtani? That is the question. And we have many more.
What’s the latest on the Ohtani trade situation?
Unlike last year, the Angels have seemingly signaled a willingness to at least listen to offers for their two-way star. The latest reports say that the club is unlikely to trade him but that it will wait until the last 24 to 48 hours before the deadline to make any final decisions. Between now and then, the Angels front office will monitor their playoff odds, survey the market, and evaluate the farm systems of potential trade partners.
Meanwhile, interested teams are starting to put together packages and call the Angels to register their interest. On Monday, MLB Network’s Jon Morosi reported that the Diamondbacks and Orioles inquired about Ohtani’s availability. On Tuesday, ESPN’s Jeff Passan linked Ohtani to the Dodgers, Rangers, Rays, and Blue Jays. Every team with a chance to contend this year would be thrilled to acquire Ohtani’s services. The question is whether they’ll have the opportunity, and that will hinge on the Angels’ play over the next six days and the whims of team owner Arte Moreno.
Give it to me straight. Will an Ohtani trade happen?
Probably not. At 52-49, the Angels are only 3.5 games behind the Blue Jays for the final AL wild-card slot, though they would also need to leapfrog the Red Sox and the scuffling Yankees. Making the playoffs is a tall task, but not an impossible one—and the Angels are playing pretty good baseball right now. Mickey Moniak replaced the injured Mike Trout in center, and now he’s mashing like him too. Taylor Ward and Luis Rengifo are riding hot streaks into August. And, of course, the best player in baseball is laying waste to the opposition on a nightly basis. The Angels are 7-2 in their past nine games, including a series sweep of the aforementioned Yanks, and FanGraphs gives them a 15.2 percent chance to make the playoffs.
Those odds would plummet to basically zero if the Angels ceased to employ Ohtani. However improbable, the allure of an Ohtani-led playoff push (not to mention the ticket sales and the opportunity to show Ohtani he can win in Anaheim) may prove too hard to walk away from. Remember: Not only have the Angels missed the playoffs every year since Ohtani signed with them in December 2017, but they also haven’t finished above .500, which means they’ve never even played meaningful September baseball with Ohtani in tow.
If the Angels prematurely pull the plug on the Ohtani era in Anaheim, it will be one of the most historic disappointments in baseball history. A two-way supernova unlike any player since Babe Ruth and Bullet Rogan fell into their laps, and they have failed to play a single postseason game. That may continue to be the case even if the Angels don’t trade Ohtani, but it’s one thing to come up short and another to voluntarily ship the game’s greatest talent out of town. Angels brass need to do whatever’s in the best interest of their club, but trading a generational two-way legend didn’t go so well for the last team that tried it.
The cold, hard calculus of building a baseball team requires the Angels to at least consider flipping Ohtani for controllable players. But Ohtani is authoring one of the most remarkable seasons we’ve ever seen. He has a chance to set the AL home run record. Every game he starts bursts with energy. Ohtani is the most exciting show in baseball, and there’s real value—financially, of course, but also emotionally and for fans—in having him on your team.
Whether they trade Ohtani next week or simply fade down the stretch and lose him for nothing, the Angels will justifiably get a lot of shit over the next several months, so let’s say one nice thing about the organization. Shohei Ohtani is an irrepressible talent who would have been successful wherever he played, but the Angels do deserve credit for encouraging him to see through his two-way experiment before it was obvious that it would work and for then taking off the training wheels so he could achieve his brilliant potential—but they failed to put a competitive team around him.
The Angels have to seriously consider trading him, right?
Absolutely. As tempting as it is to gamble on a Last Dance–esque playoff run (or, in this case, First Dance), the Angels have to be realistic. And the most likely outcome of keeping Ohtani is missing the playoffs once again and losing a generational star in free agency. (If Ohtani does leave in free agency, the Angels would receive a compensatory draft pick that falls between the second and third rounds of the 2024 MLB draft. Hooray!)
That’s particularly bleak given the Angels’ outlook. Trout is nearly 32 and has been limited by injuries in each of the past three seasons. Anthony Rendon, who is under contract through 2026, is injured and appears a virtual lock to join Albert Pujols and Josh Hamilton on the Angels’ All–Disaster Free Agency Signings first team. The Halos’ big league roster isn’t devoid of young talent—Logan O’Hoppe, Zach Neto, Reid Detmers, and Patrick Sandoval are promising players, though they profile more as solid long-term contributors than perennial All-Stars—but there isn’t much depth in the organization behind them. In its most recent rankings, FanGraphs rated the Angels’ farm system 29th in MLB, with only two top-100 prospects. Trading Ohtani would change all of that overnight—and when your other franchise tentpole is already in his 30s, time is of the essence.
If the Angels do trade Ohtani, what kind of return can they expect?
Last year, in the biggest trade of the season, the Nationals dealt Juan Soto and Josh Bell to the Padres for the unprecedented return of Luke Voit and prospects MacKenzie Gore, Robert Hassell III, CJ Abrams, James Wood, and Jarlin Susana. That was four of the team’s top five prospects, as ranked by MLB.com heading into the 2022 season. There are, however, some key differences between Soto and Ohtani—namely that Soto had two and a half seasons left on his deal and that the then-Nationals slugger was not also one of the best pitchers in the league.
A more accurate point of comparison might be the Dodgers’ 2021 deadline deal for Max Scherzer and Trea Turner that netted them an ace-level starting pitcher and a middle-of-the-order bat, which Ohtani would be all on his own. For half a season of Scherzer and 1.5 seasons of Turner, the Dodgers gave up four prospects, including their top two in catcher Keibert Ruiz and pitcher Josiah Gray.
An Ohtani trade would likely fall somewhere between those two recent deals. Given that the Angels also employ Trout, they will want young big leaguers or prospects who can contribute to a winning ballclub sooner rather than later. Serious suitors would need to offer two of their very best major league–ready prospects just to begin the conversation, and the haggling will proceed from there.
Who are the most likely Ohtani suitors? And how does this tie in to his impending free agency?
Any team trading for Ohtani would weigh two primary considerations: how much his two-way superpowers could help them try to win the World Series this year and the extent to which acquiring him now would give them a leg up in the free agency sweepstakes to come. Ohtani’s free agency—he’s expected to command close to $600 million—will be the most important story of the offseason, and executing a trade now would give one franchise half a season to sell him on why he should stick with them long term.
The Dodgers covet Ohtani, and many people around baseball view them as the favorites to sign him. But Moreno may be unwilling to send Ohtani to his geographic rival, and skeptics wonder if the Dodgers would rather just wait until the offseason to sign him outright instead of parting with valuable prospects. Waiting carries its own risks, however. One, if the Dodgers’ interest in Ohtani is as fervent as it seems, it would behoove them to get him in the dugout as soon as possible. Two, Dave Roberts’s club has opened up a four-game lead in the National League West, but the Diamondbacks are not to be taken lightly, and Atlanta looms as the strongest team in the NL. The Dodgers could use reinforcements.
Elsewhere in MLB, the Yankees desperately need another big bat with Aaron Judge injured. The Rangers, who possess a real chance to finally unseat the Astros, have a Jacob deGrom–sized hole at the top of their pitching staff and just put Corey Seager on the injured list with a thumb injury. Teams like the Mariners, Giants, and Phillies might talk themselves into an Ohtani trade as a galvanizing event this year and, even more importantly, as a means of gaining an advantage once the offseason rolls around.
Are there any dark-horse Ohtani suitors?
A blockbuster trade for the sport’s biggest star would seem antithetical to their MO, but keep an eye on the Rays throughout this saga. Historically, they have been the team preemptively trading away free agents–to-be in exchange for cost-controlled talent—and that methodical, long-term-ist approach has served the Rays well, as they boast MLB’s third-best record and one of its best farm systems. But Tampa Bay has also continually bumped up against the limitations of its talent in October. For all their innovative pitching strategies, potent platoon pairings, and brilliant moves on the margins, the Rays still need a foundational star to pull everything together. Ohtani would give them the best starting rotation in baseball and inject some thump into a lineup that has stumbled over the past few weeks and slipped behind Baltimore in the AL East. If there were ever a player to cash in years of built-up assets for, Ohtani is him—even if there’s no chance they would pony up to keep him beyond this year.
One of the more interesting subplots of the trade deadline is how aggressive MLB’s young, overperforming teams will be—and that applies to the potential market for Ohtani as well. The Orioles, Reds, and Diamondbacks are well ahead of schedule, at or near the top of their respective divisions despite young rosters. Considering the down years from division foes like the Yankees, Cardinals, and Padres, all of these teams have a real opportunity to win right away. Adding Ohtani—or lesser players, for that matter—would turn any of the plucky upstarts into genuine postseason forces.
What is the worst team that could realistically win the World Series with Ohtani?
Baseball is the sport in which one player can’t lift a team to great heights on his own—and Ohtani’s first six seasons are proof of that. But thinking through potential trade destinations clarifies his excellence and singularity in a way that’s distinct from his statistics or nightly exploits. It’s difficult to wrap your head around Ohtani’s value from a team-building perspective. It’s not new to point out that he’s both an ace and a two- or three-hole hitter (or leadoff, whatever floats your boat), but the sheer number of teams that could vault into contention by theoretically adding a star on both sides of the diamond is ridiculous.
As a thought exercise, let’s try to determine the worst team that Ohtani could realistically turn into a World Series contender. It’s difficult to define “realistically,” especially in baseball, where any team that makes the playoffs has a decent shot to win, but we’ll do our best.
- According to FanGraphs’ projections, the three teams with the best World Series odds are the Braves, Dodgers, and Rays. Those clubs are already inner-circle contenders, so we won’t spend much time on them here, but in my estimation, adding Ohtani to any one of those teams would make them the odds-on favorite.
- The next group of teams contains the Astros, Rangers, Blue Jays, Twins, and Orioles. Either the Astros or Rangers, separated by just one game, would become AL West favorites and vault into the above tier if they landed Ohtani. The Orioles, who are 1.5 games ahead of the Rays in the AL East, would solidify that advantage and in so doing match or surpass the Rays in the group above. The Jays have a top-10 offense and top-10 rotation; they would have an uphill climb in the AL East, where they currently trail the O’s by five games, but adding Ohtani would give them as much talent as any other club in the league. The Twins’ World Series odds benefit from the weak AL Central, and I don’t think even Ohtani would put them on equal footing with the rest of the teams in this group, let alone the one above.
- The next group consists of both heavyweight teams who have underperformed relative to expectations and a couple of young, unproven ones: the Phillies, Padres, Giants, Brewers, Marlins, D-backs, Yankees, Red Sox, Mets, and Mariners. With the possible exception of the Brewers (who desperately need Ohtani’s power, or anyone else’s, in the middle of their lineup), we’re in wild-card territory now. The Phillies are fresh off a World Series trip and are only a half-game out of the playoffs; I think it’s fair to say they pass the Ohtani contender test. The Padres are six games out of the wild card, but a team with their run differential would be expected to be 57-45, eight games better than their actual record of 49-53. San Diego can’t get those wins back, but that difference—which is the largest in MLB—suggests this team is better than what we’ve seen. A Padres team with Ohtani in tow would be a terrifying October opponent if they manage to make good on their 32.9 percent chance to make the playoffs. The Giants and D-backs are tied for the second and third wild-card spots right now; they both have really strong foundations but perhaps too many holes for Ohtani to paper over on his own. The Yankees are 2.5 games out and the Red Sox are only 1.5 games out of the third wild-card spot. As entertaining (or horrifying—your mileage may vary) as Ohtani on the Yankees would be, I tend to think we’ve already seen the limits of pairing Ohtani with one oft-injured MVP hitter and not much else. The Sox could really use Ohtani at the top of their rotation, but I still don’t think their pitching would be good enough to carry them to and through October. The Mets have fallen too far behind. Seattle is 4.5 games out of the final wild-card spot; Ohtani would give the M’s perhaps the most exciting starting rotation in baseball and provide a much-needed center of gravity in a lineup that always seems to be climbing uphill. Even Ohtani can’t be expected to produce more than a few wins above replacement over two months of the regular season, and I might be putting too much weight on Seattle’s finishing kick last year, but I can actually see this working.
- The next team is the Los Angeles Angels. Even with Ohtani, I don’t see them as realistic contenders, which is why we’re almost 2,700 words into this article about potential Ohtani trades.
All of which makes the Mariners the winners of the Worst Team Who Should Trade for Ohtani award. Congrats! Now go make it happen!
OK, this sounds like a blast. What needs to happen between now and the trade deadline for Ohtani to be dealt?
The biggest variable in any Ohtani trade is the Angels’ playoff hopes, which—coupled with a decade of futility—makes the next six days perhaps the most important stretch of Angels baseball in the last 10 years. Before the August 1 trade deadline, L.A. has two more games in Detroit, a three-game set in Toronto, and the opener of a three-game series in Atlanta. If the Angels can take care of business against the Tigers and take two or three from the Jays (who are currently duking it out with the Dodgers), they will put themselves right in the thick of the wild-card race. And it’s imperative that they do—after the deadline, the Angels will finish their series against the Braves and then face the Mariners, Giants, Astros, Rangers, Rays, and Reds, all of whom are at or above .500. If the Angels fall even further behind the Blue Jays over the next several days, the postseason could start to look like a pipe dream in a hurry.
It won’t happen, but Ohtani could catalyze the proceedings by asking the Angels for a trade, or even telling team brass that he intends to sign elsewhere in free agency. This type of player maneuvering is less common in MLB than it is in the NBA, and Ohtani has stated he doesn’t want to talk about contract extensions or his impending free agency until after the season. But nobody—including the Angels—seems to have a clear sense of Ohtani’s desires or priorities in free agency, aside from going somewhere he can win. That lack of clarity leaves teams (including the Angels) to guess whether they might have a chance to sign Ohtani in free agency. If the Angels falter over the next week and the rubber meets the road, Moreno and Angels general manager Perry Minasian may try to get a clearer understanding from Ohtani as to whether they have any chance to re-sign him.
Are there any other players or teams upon which the Ohtani market hinges?
Ohtani is, by far, the best player who could move in the next week, but that doesn’t mean his market exists in a vacuum. One of the most striking aspects of this year’s trade deadline is the dearth of sellers. Obvious candidates like the Tigers, Royals, Rockies, and A’s don’t have much expendable top-end talent that would appeal to contenders, and some of the other clubs near the bottom of the standings (the Mets, Padres, Cardinals, and Yankees) are big spenders who fancied themselves heavyweights coming into this year and will be loath to part with anyone who could help them regain their footing next season.
The extent to which those teams lean into selling will impact the market for Ohtani. If sluggers like Paul Goldschmidt or aces like Justin Verlander and Scherzer are available, buyers might be less willing to pay premium prices for the Angels star. But if those teams decide to hold tight and play out the string, opposing GMs may start making Moreno offers he can’t refuse.
Who are the other difference-makers that could change teams?
Most of the best players who might be moved ahead of August 1 are pitchers: The White Sox’s Lucas Giolito, the Cubs’ Marcus Stroman, the Cardinals’ Jordan Montgomery, and the Tigers’ Eduardo Rodriguez and Michael Lorenzen could each slot into a playoff rotation. If the Mets and Padres decide to pack it in, Verlander, Scherzer, and Blake Snell could also find themselves on new teams before the calendar flips.
On the offensive side, the pickings are slimmer. The Reds are reportedly open to trading 2021 Rookie of the Year Jonathan India, who has struggled to regain his form from that year but remains a useful player. Cody Bellinger is swinging a hot stick for the Cubs after signing a one-year deal; he could be a left-handed consolation bat for some contender that misses out on Ohtani. Beyond that, we’re looking at a handful of solid yet uninspiring options, like the Nationals’ Jeimer Candelario and Lane Thomas or the Rockies’ Randal Grichuk and All-Star Game MVP Elias Díaz.
That’s a tad underwhelming. Could there be a surprise trade that will liven up the deadline?
Shohei Ohtani?
